[WikiEN-l] Species names

[Stevertigo]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tony Wilson" <list at redhill.net.au>
To: "WikiEN" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2003 1:47 AM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Species names


> STV wrote: it does seem strange that you wrote two long-winded retorts
> to her one short statement. (Sometimes, for reasons that escape me, the
> posts come through out of order. Something to do with time zones or
> individual system clock settings, I guess.)
> 
> Anyway, that's not so, STV. Read the posts over: you will see that I
> wrote a single post of medium length this moning, which Zoe  then
> replied to saying that she had been " attacked so fiercely" - which is
> odd, as I don't recall attacking Zoe at all. I suspect that an
> examination of the record will bear this out. She then went on to claim
> that I was engaging in "continuing personal attacks". Nonsense.  I have
> been forced to make a series of personal DEFENCES, which is a very
> different thing. So I posted a brief reply to that, setting the record
> straight. 
> 
> Moving on to the subject of EC's unilaterial edit war and cut & paste
> page move, having already called me a liar, EC then wrote: "I can
> affirm that I did not use it [cut & paste] in the course of this edit
> war". 
> 
> I invite readers to visit
> http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Giant_panda&diff=988572&oldi
> d=988552 and see the evidence for themselves.
> 
> -------
> 
> Now, with that out of the way, I'll move on to add yet more citations
> to those which I have given previously, let's start with this one:
> 
> The Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
> The American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
> and The Herpetologists' League
> 
> have a joint commitee on English and scientific names, which is working
> to "achieve the goal of making a list of Standard English Names for
> North America and the world", adds some comments about the practical
> worth of common names in a broader sense that are worthy of further
> consideration. The para is lengthy, so I'll edit down a bit. As their
> examples, they take  ''Cynocephalus mormon''  and ''Cynocephalus
> sphinx'' (the Mandril and the Guinea Baboon). 
> 
> Since 1904, these names have undergone the following
> vagaries:''Cynocephalus mormon'' became ''Papio mormon'', otherwise
> ''Papio maimon'', which turned to ''Papio sphinx''. This might well
> have been confused with ''Cynocephalus'', now become ''Papio sphinx''
> ,had not the latter meanwhile been turned into ''Papio papio'' .This
> danger averted, ''Papio sphinx'' now became ''Mandrillus sphinx'',
> while ''Papio papio'' became ''Papio comatus''  
> 
> Their point, in short, is that if you want to refer to one of these two
> species and be sure that the reader knows which one you actually mean,
> you really *have* to use the common name! 
> 
> Oh, and they capitalise species names as a matter of policy.
> 
> The Ohio Odonata Society  says: "English names have been determined for
> Odonata, (Paulson and Dunkle 1996), and accepted by the Dragonfly
> Society of the Americas (DSA) in an effort to bring some control to
> common names, thus addressing the demand for common names that has
> grown with interest in the order. Common names should be capitalized
> when referring to a species, but lower case when speaking in general.
> For example, we refer to dragonflies in general but to a King Skimmer
> (genus Libellula) or the Common Green Darner, (Anax junius).
> Capitalizing species names is desirable because many of them begin with
> adjectives or adverbs. It is difficult to determine the name of the
> common green darner (where 'common' might be editorial comment) as
> opposed to the Common Green Darner."
> 
> The Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales (Australia) says:
> "Generic and specific scientific names are to be in italics.
> Standardized vernacular (common) names for species should be
> capitalised and first used in conjunction with the full scientific name
> and the scientific name should be used for all subsequent references to
> the species.When using the common name in conjunction with the
> scientific name, do not put the scientific name in brackets. Both
> common names and scientific names may be used in captions to tables,
> figures and photos. Common names used in a "generic" sense (eg: cats,
> dogs, foxes, eucalypts) should not be capitalised or italicised."
> 
> In the course of looking that stuff up (wasting yet more perfectly good
> editing time) I also stumbled across a number of other references,
> which serve to confirm the two broad trends that I and others have
> remarked on previously:
> 
> (a) That decaptialisation is largely an American practice and is much
> less common in other English-speaking parts of the world.
> 
> (b) More interestingly, that there seems to be an almost 1:1
> relationship between the degree to which species names are capitalised
> in different taxa, and the extent to which species names are formalised
> and standardised. 
> 
> This makes excellent sense, when you think about it. In the case of
> birds, a common name is an exact 1:1 equivalent to the binomial name.
> It is, like the name of a type of aircraft or a model of car, a
> quasi-proper noun. Bird common names are not duplicated, even between
> different continents, and capitalisation of bird common names is
> practically universal. With mammals, the story is much the same. From
> my reading today, I gather that reptile names are not far behind
> either.
> 
> However, with fish this process is not as well developed. here are far
> more conflicting or ambiguous names, and capitalisation is less broadly
> supported - although nevertheless vigorously debated and something of a
> 50/50 call.
> 
> With arthropods (insects and spiders and so on), common names are not
> terribly useful as yet (and may never be). According to the American
> Arthropod society, more than 50% of the *families* do not have a common
> name yet, never mind individual species. Here, clearly, we have a
> situation where common names are little if any better than nicknames,
> and a strong case for decapitalisation can be mounted.(They themselves
> do not capitalise.)
> 
> Finally, there is flora. The common names of plants are a horrible
> mess. Within any one geographic area they seem to be consistent enough,
> certainly for the larger species (trees, shrubs, wildflowers), but
> *between* areas they often conflict with one another. Australian plant
> common names, for example, do not conflict with one another, but *do*
> conflict with the names of other, completely different, plants in
> Europe and America. Eventually, one supposes, the botanical authorities
> will get their act together as the bird, mammal and reptile people
> have, and as the fish people are trying to do. In the meantime, though,
> plant common names are not terribly helpful a lot of the time. It is no
> doubt this very reason that stands behind the much greater usage of
> botanical names by laypeople interested in plants as opposed to very
> little usage of binomial names by laypeople interested in animals.
> Indeed, I am wondering if, as time goes by and the flora sections start
>  to fill up, it might be sensible to consider using botanical names for
> plants more. (I'm not convinced that that is the best way to go, but
> it's certainly something that ought to be considered.)
> 
> Tony
> 
> 
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